A study, released Wednesday, of crimes triggered by prejudice tallied 3,000 such incidents in the United States between 1980 and 1986.
The study, released at a news conference here by an Atlanta-based public policy group, the Center for Democratic Renewal, is based largely on unofficial sources, since only three states — Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania — keep statistics on hate crimes, explained Rabbi A. James Rudin, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee.
Rudin said Congress needs to approve a bill sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) that would for the first time require the Justice Department to compile statistics on crimes motivated by bigotry.
“It’s like tracking a disease,” he said, mentioning that the profile of the person who commits hate crimes is still unclear, except for the “youth factor.” He mentioned that no one knows whether the crimes occur more often in urban than in rural areas, or at a certain time of year.
He also called for “education campaigns” targeted at youths, and stricter penalties, should official statistics find that the crimes do not occur “randomly.”
Rudin participated in the news conference along with Leonard Zeskind, research director for the Center for Democratic Renewal; Dr. Kenyon Burke, associate general secretary for church and society of the National Council of Churches; and Cedrick Hendricks, a congressional aide representing Conyers.
While the report did not categorize the 3,000 incidents into compartments such as “anti-Semitic,” it said that “people of color, as well as Jews remain the single largest target of organized hate violence.”
It also found that the 1980s have been marked by “cross-fertilizations of the (Ku Klux) Klan with neo-Nazi groupings,” making anti-Semitism “increasingly significant.”
“Jew-hating has always been a part of nativist and racist movements in this country,” the report noted.
Rudin said that such crime “is not a regional issue — as some might have thought some years ago — it is a national issue.” He noted that anti-Semitic or anti-black acts are not indigenous to any one part of the country.
He said the most important message of the study, which is titled “They Don’t All Wear Sheets,” is that “words do kill” even if those who utter the words don’t carry out the acts.
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